tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-49392439783438045162024-03-12T08:48:30.198-05:00Amy E. HallInformation. Documentation. Celebration.Amy E. Hallhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09701006162067310815noreply@blogger.comBlogger3708125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4939243978343804516.post-15238609243772614662024-03-12T08:45:00.004-05:002024-03-12T08:47:58.101-05:00Quote of the Day<p>Just listening to music activates more brain regions simultaneously than any other human activity. <br /></p><p>-- <a href="https://clinicalconnection.hopkinsmedicine.org/news/harnessing-the-healing-power-of-music" target="_blank">Alexander Pantelyat, M.D. Director, Johns Hopkins Center for Music and Medicine</a><br /></p>Amy E. Hallhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09701006162067310815noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4939243978343804516.post-77628976870259008442024-02-22T09:36:00.004-06:002024-02-22T09:37:30.891-06:00Hearing Tsering Yangzom Lama and Shane McCrae<p>Two nights ago, I attended the latest edition of Hope College's Jack Ridl Visiting Writers Series, featuring novelist <a href="https://tseringlama.com/" target="_blank">Tsering Yangzom Lama</a> and poet/memoirist <a href="https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poets/shane-mccrae" target="_blank">Shane McCrae</a>. <br /></p>Amy E. Hallhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09701006162067310815noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4939243978343804516.post-68512934920072254422024-02-09T11:02:00.001-06:002024-02-09T11:02:23.117-06:00Hearing Dana VanderLugt<p>Last night, I attended an event featuring author/educator <a href="https://danavanderlugt.com/" target="_blank">Dana VanderLugt</a> and poet/retired professor <a href="https://ridl.wordpress.com/" target="_blank">Jack Ridl</a> at Hope College. The two engaged in an on-stage conversation about VanderLugt's new book, <i>Enemies in the Orchard</i>.<br /></p>Amy E. Hallhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09701006162067310815noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4939243978343804516.post-28873810381763599432024-02-08T08:08:00.001-06:002024-02-08T08:08:33.525-06:00Quote of the Day<p>... language is a form of power. It creates categories that help us interpret the world, and that which is not easily available in language is often ignored in thought itself. A shared vocabulary makes ideas more accessible while a lack of language can render an experience illegible. It can isolate.<br /></p><p>-- Angela Chen, <i><a href="https://www.amazon.com/Ace-Asexuality-Reveals-Society-Meaning/dp/0807014737/ref=sr_1_1?crid=MYC4WPTHY24Y&keywords=Ace+Angela+Chen&qid=1707401056&s=books&sprefix=ace+angela+chen%2Cstripbooks%2C120&sr=1-1" target="_blank">Ace</a></i>, p. 17<br /></p>Amy E. Hallhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09701006162067310815noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4939243978343804516.post-24879531028331432892024-02-06T08:30:00.003-06:002024-02-06T08:30:36.983-06:00Quote of the Day<p>I think all creative people, you get something in your head, and then you have to figure out how to express it. And I feel like that's the best way to understand what it's like to be an artist.</p><p>-- <a href="https://www.rollingstone.com/tv-movies/tv-movie-features/sofia-coppola-priscilla-interview-elvis-presley-taylor-swift-twilight-1234859000/" target="_blank">Sofia Coppola</a><br /></p>Amy E. Hallhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09701006162067310815noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4939243978343804516.post-44285473496362943572024-01-18T08:34:00.004-06:002024-01-18T08:34:57.216-06:00Quote of the Day<p>Poetry is a life-cherishing force. For poems are not words, after all, but fires for the cold, ropes let down to the lost, something as necessary as bread in the pockets of the hungry.</p><p>-- Mary Oliver <br /></p>Amy E. Hallhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09701006162067310815noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4939243978343804516.post-7019228868005711732024-01-16T12:31:00.003-06:002024-01-16T12:33:03.558-06:00Quote of the Day<p>ANDERSON COOPER: The strange thing about grief is that it feels so alone. And yet it is this experience which everybody has gone through or will go through, and yet it still feels so lonely.</p><p>ASHLEY JUDD: No one can do it for us. We do not have to do it alone.</p><p><a href="https://www.cnn.com/audio/podcasts/all-there-is-with-anderson-cooper/episodes/c6f1854e-741e-11ee-b574-a365222f4828" target="_blank"><i>All There Is with Anderson Cooper</i>, "Ashley Judd: Grief, Love and Naomi"</a><br /></p>Amy E. Hallhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09701006162067310815noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4939243978343804516.post-80869346778473179952023-12-31T11:16:00.002-06:002023-12-31T11:17:36.992-06:00Bookin' It in 2023<p>The year 2023 was the most difficult year of my life, for a number of reasons. I found it nearly impossible to focus on reading for pleasure, but I was able to finish the following four books.</p><ol style="text-align: left;"><li><b><a href="https://www.amazon.com/Apology-Eve-Ensler/dp/1635574382/ref=tmm_hrd_swatch_0?_encoding=UTF8&qid=1704042137&sr=1-1" target="_blank"><span face=""Arial",sans-serif" style="font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: EN-US; mso-fareast-theme-font: minor-fareast;"><i>The Apology</i> by Eve Ensler</span></a><span face=""Arial",sans-serif" style="font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: EN-US; mso-fareast-theme-font: minor-fareast;"> <br /></span></b></li><li><a href="https://www.amazon.com/Secret-Superhuman-Strength-Alison-Bechdel/dp/0544387651/ref=sr_1_1?crid=29V3C2LHDCL8J&keywords=The+Secret+to+Superhuman+Strength+by+Alison+Bechdel&qid=1704042700&s=books&sprefix=the+secret+to+superhuman+strength+by+alison+bechdel%2Cstripbooks%2C119&sr=1-1" target="_blank"><span face=""Arial",sans-serif" style="font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: EN-US; mso-fareast-theme-font: minor-fareast;"><i>The Secret to Superhuman Strength</i> by Alison
Bechdel</span></a><span face=""Arial",sans-serif" style="font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: EN-US; mso-fareast-theme-font: minor-fareast;"> </span> </li><li><span face=""Arial",sans-serif" style="font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: EN-US; mso-fareast-theme-font: minor-fareast;"><a href="https://www.amazon.com/Look-Again-Elizabeth-Trembley/dp/1951491181/ref=sr_1_1?crid=1CT6D7R6XG2PU&keywords=Look+Again%3A+A+Memoir+by+Elizabeth+A.+Trembley&qid=1704042755&s=books&sprefix=look+again+a+memoir+by+elizabeth+a.+trembley%2Cstripbooks%2C92&sr=1-1" target="_blank"><i>Look Again: A Memoir </i>by Elizabeth A. Trembley</a></span></li><li><span face=""Arial",sans-serif" style="font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: EN-US; mso-fareast-theme-font: minor-fareast;"><a href="https://www.amazon.com/Practicing-Walk-Heron-Michigan-Writers/dp/0814334539/ref=sr_1_1?crid=2PAE6LWMTKKX4&keywords=Practicing+to+Walk+Like+a+Heron%3A+Poems+by+Jack+Ridl&qid=1704042804&s=books&sprefix=practicing+to+walk+like+a+heron+poems+by+jack+ridl%2Cstripbooks%2C110&sr=1-1" target="_blank"><i>Practicing to Walk Like a Heron: Poems </i>by Jack Ridl</a></span><span face=""Arial",sans-serif" style="font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: EN-US; mso-fareast-theme-font: minor-fareast;"> </span> </li></ol>Amy E. Hallhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09701006162067310815noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4939243978343804516.post-61128717220363153622023-10-04T07:04:00.003-05:002023-10-04T07:04:54.773-05:00Quote of the Day<p>Life will break you. Nobody can protect you from that, and being alone won't either, for solitude will also break you with its yearning. You have to love. You have to feel. It is the reason you are here on earth. You have to risk your heart. You are here to be swallowed up. And when it happens that you are broken, or betrayed, or left, or hurt, or death brushes too near, let yourself sit by an apple tree and listen to the apples falling all around you in heaps, wasting their sweetness. Tell yourself that you tasted as many as you could.</p><p>-- Louise Erdrich</p>Amy E. Hallhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09701006162067310815noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4939243978343804516.post-47877037083748559832023-09-21T21:44:00.004-05:002023-09-21T21:44:37.217-05:00Hearing MK Czewiec and Elizabeth Trembley<p>Last night, I had the pleasure of experiencing two authors/educators/graphic artists, <a href="https://comicnurse.com/" target="_blank">MK Czerwiec</a> and <a href="http://elizabethtrembley.com/" target="_blank">Elizabeth Trembley</a>, speak at Hope College's first Jack Ridl Visiting Writers Series event of the school year.<br /></p>Amy E. Hallhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09701006162067310815noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4939243978343804516.post-85805007082608518342023-08-17T10:04:00.001-05:002023-08-17T10:04:06.589-05:00Quote of the Day<p>I've been exposed to the incredible world of music from day one. I slowly collected songs like rolling around in a pile of leaves in wet clothes. Everything is sticking to you slowly. It's amazing how much music a person is exposed to and how it alters your life.</p><p>-- <a href="https://downbeat.com/news/detail/ralph-towner-achieves-a-milestone" target="_blank">Ralph Towner</a><br /></p>Amy E. Hallhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09701006162067310815noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4939243978343804516.post-65591537250036734362023-08-15T07:44:00.004-05:002023-08-15T07:44:56.190-05:00Quote of the Day<p>The most regretful people on earth are those who felt the call to creative work, who felt their own creative power restive and uprising, and gave to it neither power nor time.</p><p>-- Mary Oliver<br /></p>Amy E. Hallhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09701006162067310815noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4939243978343804516.post-15339542907178401792023-07-30T08:56:00.007-05:002023-07-30T08:56:45.229-05:00Quote of the Day<p>I don't do anything in order to cause trouble. It just so happens that what I do naturally causes trouble. I'm proud to be a troublemaker.<br /></p><div style="left: -99999px; position: absolute;">I don't do anything in
order to cause trouble. It just so happens that what I do naturally
causes trouble. I'm proud to be a troublemaker. <br /> Read more at https://www.brainyquote.com/authors/sinead-oconnor-quotes</div><p>-- Sinead O'Connor<br /></p>Amy E. Hallhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09701006162067310815noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4939243978343804516.post-78115193987727980492023-07-28T09:12:00.002-05:002023-07-28T09:13:28.368-05:00Quote of the Day<p>I think grief treats me best when I'm channeling the people I've lost through my current living. For example, the best example I can give of this also goes back to music. There are a couple songs that I love, that I'm really drawn to, but they're songs I'm loving because I know (a close friend who passed away) would love them. And so I am loving them through him. Or there are things I know how to make, to cook or bake because I watched my mother do it. I think grief treats us well when these parts of people that we've gotten to enjoy greet us warmly. That's the real gift, to say I am not just one person, I am multiple versions of a person and some of those versions of myself have been loved immensely by people who were so incredible. Through their loving of me I have a richer texture, and that texture that allows me to navigate the world in ways that I am not equipped to do so on my own. And that means that on my best days I get through the world, through the challenges of living, navigated by a whole host of people who have created a generous blueprint through which I have learned to maneuver this life well.</p><p>-- <a href="https://www.npr.org/2023/07/23/1189435741/why-this-poet-sees-grief-as-its-own-kind-of-spiritual-practice" target="_blank">Hanif Abdurraqib</a> <br /></p>Amy E. Hallhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09701006162067310815noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4939243978343804516.post-61300081103231503402023-07-27T07:19:00.003-05:002023-07-27T07:19:31.390-05:00Quote of the Day<p>If I hope for anything as an artist, it's that I inspire certain people to be who they really are. My audiences seem to be people who have been given a hard time for being who they are.</p><p>-- Sinead O'Connor<br /></p>Amy E. Hallhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09701006162067310815noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4939243978343804516.post-79446880031786911882023-07-26T07:15:00.001-05:002023-07-26T07:15:03.659-05:00Quote of the Day<p>My process now if I'm in a state of depression or anxiety, both of which I have lived with for much of my life, I ask myself in the morning, "How good do I feel about being alive today?" Thankfully these days, more times than not, the answer is at the very least, "Pretty good." Some days it's "very good." But there are some days where the answer is, "Not very good at all." And then it becomes a descending clock. It's no longer, "How do I feel about being alive today?" it's "How do I feel about being alive this hour?" And if the answer is still "Not very good" then it's, "How do I feel about being alive in the next 20 minutes?" If the answer is still "Not very good" then it gets a little more urgent and I ask, "What curiosity can propel me towards the next five minutes?" If I move through the day I will find an accumulation of things that propel me to the next day where the answer might be different and better.</p><p>-- <a href="https://www.npr.org/2023/07/23/1189435741/why-this-poet-sees-grief-as-its-own-kind-of-spiritual-practice" target="_blank">Hanif Abdurraqib</a></p>Amy E. Hallhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09701006162067310815noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4939243978343804516.post-92003240823038906582023-07-25T07:39:00.002-05:002023-07-25T07:39:17.775-05:00Quote of the Day<p>I'm of the belief that one doesn't move past loss. Or at least in my life, I don't move past loss. Grief makes a home within us if we allow it to ... I believe that I should be a generous steward to my grief. If I tend generously to my grief then it treats me well in return. That means that each time I'm confronted with the grief, I have a new depth of tools to move through it. Understanding that grief is not only tied to death or loss, but grief of the various heartbreaks we live with.</p><p>-- <a href="https://www.npr.org/2023/07/23/1189435741/why-this-poet-sees-grief-as-its-own-kind-of-spiritual-practice" target="_blank">Hanif Abdurraqib</a></p>Amy E. Hallhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09701006162067310815noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4939243978343804516.post-26672568568152787532023-07-24T12:52:00.004-05:002023-07-24T12:52:58.832-05:00Quote of the Day<p>In some ways music, if nothing else, builds these small monuments to people that I can always hold onto. There are songs that operate as monuments to people I've lost and they make a park of monuments that I can return to.</p><p>-- <a href="https://www.npr.org/2023/07/23/1189435741/why-this-poet-sees-grief-as-its-own-kind-of-spiritual-practice" target="_blank">Hanif Abdurraqib</a></p>Amy E. Hallhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09701006162067310815noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4939243978343804516.post-27461291983640197282023-06-07T20:29:00.002-05:002023-06-07T20:29:47.703-05:00Meeting Elizabeth A. Trembley<p>I enjoyed hearing and meeting author <a href="https://www.instagram.com/elizabeth_trembley/?hl=en" target="_blank">Elizabeth A. Trembley</a> at Out on the Lakeshore tonight. She spoke about her graphic memoir, <i><a href="https://www.amazon.com/Look-Again-Elizabeth-Trembley/dp/1951491181/ref=sr_1_1?crid=38788IJ2H8DRW&keywords=Elizabeth+A.+Trembley+Look+Again&qid=1686187601&s=books&sprefix=elizabeth+a.+trembley+look+again%2Cstripbooks%2C415&sr=1-1" target="_blank">Look Again</a></i>, as well as <span class="x193iq5w xeuugli x13faqbe x1vvkbs x1xmvt09 x1lliihq x1s928wv xhkezso x1gmr53x x1cpjm7i x1fgarty x1943h6x xudqn12 x3x7a5m x6prxxf xvq8zen xo1l8bm xzsf02u" dir="auto">the magic of making comics.</span></p>Amy E. Hallhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09701006162067310815noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4939243978343804516.post-30372434864422091262023-03-29T15:33:00.007-05:002023-03-29T15:33:53.255-05:00Quote of the Day<p>Fortune favors the prepared mind. <br /></p><p>-- Louis Pasteur<br /></p>Amy E. Hallhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09701006162067310815noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4939243978343804516.post-45971335750692310582023-02-26T08:40:00.000-06:002023-02-26T08:40:02.493-06:00Quote of the Day<p>Those who can make you believe absurdities can make you commit atrocities.</p><p>-- Voltaire<br /></p>Amy E. Hallhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09701006162067310815noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4939243978343804516.post-88776767018550883662023-02-13T07:07:00.001-06:002023-02-13T07:07:07.854-06:00Quote of the Day<p>The most common way people give up their power is by thinking they don't have any.</p><p>-- Alice Walker</p>Amy E. Hallhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09701006162067310815noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4939243978343804516.post-7427498871507579732023-01-30T08:53:00.002-06:002023-01-30T08:53:29.066-06:00Quote of the Day<p>Before this [CD] collection (and the growing arsenal of records in the next room over ...) is inevitably handled down or tubbed up, it will remember the story of my life better than my battered brain ever could on its own.</p><p>-- Kris Swales, "<a href="https://www.theguardian.com/music/commentisfree/2023/jan/04/friends-mock-me-for-keeping-my-cds-but-i-cant-bear-to-part-with-these-postcards-from-my-past?utm_source=dlvr.it&utm_medium=facebook&fbclid=IwAR1hn7K3y2kbgCDdpyiiJMejezlvDg55wFp3OanpIdEwKmZV2Jp40TbYcmk" target="_blank">Friends mock me for keeping my CDs, but I can't bear to part with these postcards from my past</a>" <br /></p>Amy E. Hallhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09701006162067310815noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4939243978343804516.post-57646089720919831352023-01-29T08:02:00.004-06:002023-01-29T08:02:57.679-06:00Quote of the Day<p>Listening to music should be an immersive experience. Streaming music [on the other hand] is something you mostly do while you're doing something else.</p><p>-- Kris Swales, "<a href="https://www.theguardian.com/music/commentisfree/2023/jan/04/friends-mock-me-for-keeping-my-cds-but-i-cant-bear-to-part-with-these-postcards-from-my-past?utm_source=dlvr.it&utm_medium=facebook&fbclid=IwAR1hn7K3y2kbgCDdpyiiJMejezlvDg55wFp3OanpIdEwKmZV2Jp40TbYcmk" target="_blank">Friends mock me for keeping my CDs, but I can't bear to part with these postcards from my past</a>" <br /></p>Amy E. Hallhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09701006162067310815noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4939243978343804516.post-50440516488189770592023-01-28T07:54:00.002-06:002023-01-28T07:54:09.406-06:00Quote of the Day<p>Running my eye across my [CD] collection is like flicking through a shoebox filled with love letters and postcards from my past: the exhilarating highs, the soul-crushing lows, sprinklings of the drudgery in between.</p><p>-- Kris Swales, "<a href="https://www.theguardian.com/music/commentisfree/2023/jan/04/friends-mock-me-for-keeping-my-cds-but-i-cant-bear-to-part-with-these-postcards-from-my-past?utm_source=dlvr.it&utm_medium=facebook&fbclid=IwAR1hn7K3y2kbgCDdpyiiJMejezlvDg55wFp3OanpIdEwKmZV2Jp40TbYcmk" target="_blank">Friends mock me for keeping my CDs, but I can't bear to part with these postcards from my past</a>"</p>Amy E. Hallhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09701006162067310815noreply@blogger.com0